1 00:00:07,509 --> 00:00:13,690 there are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older 2 00:00:13,689 --> 00:00:14,759 fish 3 00:00:14,759 --> 00:00:19,740 what who nods at them and says morning boys how's the water and the two young 4 00:00:19,739 --> 00:00:22,859 fish swim on for a bit and then eventually one of them looks over at the 5 00:00:22,859 --> 00:00:30,089 other and goes what the hell is water the point of the fish story is merely 6 00:00:30,089 --> 00:00:33,270 that the most obvious important realities are often the ones that are 7 00:00:33,270 --> 00:00:38,100 hardest to see and talk about stated as an English sentence of course this is 8 00:00:38,100 --> 00:00:43,140 just a banal platitude but the fact is that in the day-to-day trenches of adult 9 00:00:43,140 --> 00:00:47,158 existence then all platitudes can have a life-or-death importance 10 00:00:47,158 --> 00:00:51,420 the plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what 11 00:00:51,420 --> 00:00:57,838 day in day out really needs there happened to be a whole large parts of 12 00:00:57,838 --> 00:01:03,390 adult american life that nobody talks about instrumentals feature one such 13 00:01:03,390 --> 00:01:08,760 part involves boredom routine and petty frustration the parents and older folks 14 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:11,609 here will know all too well what I'm talking about 15 00:01:11,609 --> 00:01:16,680 by way of example let's say it's an average adult day you get up in the 16 00:01:16,680 --> 00:01:20,820 morning go to your challenging white-collar college graduate job and 17 00:01:20,819 --> 00:01:24,269 you work hard for eight or ten hours and at the end of the day you're tired and 18 00:01:24,269 --> 00:01:28,140 somewhat stressed and all you wanted to go home and have a good supper and maybe 19 00:01:28,140 --> 00:01:31,560 unwind for an hour and then hit the sack early because of course you have to get 20 00:01:31,560 --> 00:01:31,780 up 21 00:01:31,780 --> 00:01:36,790 and do it all again and you remember there's no food at home you haven't had 22 00:01:36,790 --> 00:01:41,799 time to shop this week because you're challenging job and so now after work 23 00:01:41,799 --> 00:01:44,530 you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket 24 00:01:44,530 --> 00:01:48,310 it's the end of a workday and the traffic is apt to be very bad 25 00:01:49,209 --> 00:01:53,140 so getting to the store takes way longer than it should and when you finally get 26 00:01:53,140 --> 00:01:56,978 there the supermarket is very crowded because of courses the time of day when 27 00:01:56,978 --> 00:01:59,978 all the other people with jobs to also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping 28 00:01:59,978 --> 00:02:05,049 but you can't just get in and quickly out you have to wander all over the huge 29 00:02:05,049 --> 00:02:09,368 over lit stores confusing miles to find the stuff you want and you have to 30 00:02:09,368 --> 00:02:13,689 maneuver your junkie card through all these other tire curry people apart etc 31 00:02:13,689 --> 00:02:19,090 that are cutting stuff out because it's one ceremony and eventually you get all 32 00:02:19,090 --> 00:02:22,629 your supper supplies except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes 33 00:02:22,629 --> 00:02:26,859 open even though it's the end of the day rush so the checkout line is incredibly 34 00:02:26,860 --> 00:02:31,269 long which is stupid and infuriating but you can take your frustration out on the 35 00:02:31,269 --> 00:02:35,980 frantic lady working the register who was overworked a job whose daily tedium 36 00:02:35,979 --> 00:02:39,459 and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a 37 00:02:39,459 --> 00:02:44,049 prestigious college but anyway you finally get to the checkout lines front 38 00:02:44,049 --> 00:02:49,299 and pay for your food and get told to have a nice day in a voice that is the 39 00:02:49,299 --> 00:02:54,610 absolute voice of death and then you have to take your creepy floozy plastic 40 00:02:54,610 --> 00:02:58,810 bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that falls madly to the 41 00:02:58,810 --> 00:03:03,549 left all the way out through the crowded bumpy litari parking lot and then you 42 00:03:03,549 --> 00:03:07,450 have to drive all the way home to slow heavy SUV intensive rush hour traffic 43 00:03:07,449 --> 00:03:09,669 etc etc 44 00:03:09,669 --> 00:03:14,679 everyone here is done this of course but it hasn't yet been part of you graduates 45 00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:20,650 actual life routine day after week after month after year but it will be 46 00:03:21,770 --> 00:03:28,250 and many more dreary annoying seemingly meaningless routines besides but that is 47 00:03:28,250 --> 00:03:32,449 not the point the point is that petty frustrating crap like this is exactly 48 00:03:32,449 --> 00:03:37,459 where the work of choosing is going to come in because the traffic jams and 49 00:03:37,460 --> 00:03:42,050 crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think and if I don't 50 00:03:42,050 --> 00:03:45,710 make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to 51 00:03:46,219 --> 00:03:50,689 we're going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop because my 52 00:03:50,689 --> 00:03:54,710 natural developed studies certainty that situations like this are really all 53 00:03:54,710 --> 00:04:00,230 about me about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home 54 00:04:00,229 --> 00:04:04,969 and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way 55 00:04:04,969 --> 00:04:09,830 and who are all these people in my way and look at how repulsive motion 56 00:04:09,830 --> 00:04:13,880 tomorrow and how stupid and now like instead I'd and non-human they seem in 57 00:04:13,879 --> 00:04:17,449 the checkout line or how annoying and rude it is that people are talking 58 00:04:17,449 --> 00:04:21,409 loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line and look at how deeply 59 00:04:21,410 --> 00:04:27,080 personally unfair to see if i choose to think this way in the store and on the 60 00:04:27,079 --> 00:04:32,180 freeway fine lots of us do except thinking this way tends to be so easy 61 00:04:32,180 --> 00:04:37,759 and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice it is my natural folks it's the 62 00:04:37,759 --> 00:04:42,469 automatic way that I experienced the boring frustrating crowded parts of 63 00:04:42,470 --> 00:04:47,090 adult life when I'm operating on the automatic unconscious belief that i am 64 00:04:47,089 --> 00:04:50,839 the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings or what you 65 00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:52,489 determine the world priority 66 00:04:52,490 --> 00:04:56,000 the thing is that of course there are totally different ways to think about 67 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:57,889 these kinds of situations 68 00:04:57,889 --> 00:05:02,538 in this traffic all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way 69 00:05:02,538 --> 00:05:06,860 it's not impossible that some of these people and suvs have been horrible auto 70 00:05:06,860 --> 00:05:11,538 accident you passed and now find driving so terrifying that this therapist is all 71 00:05:11,538 --> 00:05:15,918 that ordered them to get a huge heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drop 72 00:05:15,918 --> 00:05:20,870 or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone 73 00:05:20,870 --> 00:05:25,999 else in the supermarket's checkout line just as bored as frustrated as I and 74 00:05:25,999 --> 00:05:29,870 that some of these people probably have much harder for tedious painful lives 75 00:05:29,870 --> 00:05:35,569 then I do again please don't think I'm giving moral advice or that I'm saying 76 00:05:35,569 --> 00:05:38,750 you're supposed to think this way or that anyone expects you to just 77 00:05:38,750 --> 00:05:44,329 automatically do it because it's hard it takes real and effort and if you are 78 00:05:44,329 --> 00:05:50,088 like me some days you won't be able to do it or you just flat-out warranty but 79 00:05:50,088 --> 00:05:54,918 most days if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice you can choose to look 80 00:05:54,918 --> 00:05:59,748 differently at this fat that I / made up lady just screamed at her kid in the 81 00:05:59,749 --> 00:06:02,838 checkout line maybe she's not usually like this 82 00:06:03,348 --> 00:06:06,889 maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband is 83 00:06:06,889 --> 00:06:11,838 dying from heat or maybe this very ladies the low-wage clerk the motor 84 00:06:11,838 --> 00:06:15,949 vehicles department who just yesterday help your spouse resolve hrithik 85 00:06:15,949 --> 00:06:19,879 infuriating red tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic 86 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:24,800 of course none of this is likely but it's also not impossible 87 00:06:25,788 --> 00:06:30,199 it just depends what you want to consider if you're automatically sure 88 00:06:30,199 --> 00:06:35,629 you know what reality is and what is really important if you want to operate 89 00:06:35,629 --> 00:06:39,079 under default setting and you like me 90 00:06:39,079 --> 00:06:44,000 probably won't consider possibilities that are annoying miserable but if you 91 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:49,579 really learn how to think how to pay attention then you'll know you have 92 00:06:49,579 --> 00:06:50,839 other options 93 00:06:50,839 --> 00:06:56,959 it will actually be within your power to experience a crowded hot slow consumer 94 00:06:56,959 --> 00:07:02,538 health type situation has not only meaningful that sacred on fire with the 95 00:07:02,538 --> 00:07:08,478 same force that with the Stars love fellowship the mystical oneness of all 96 00:07:08,478 --> 00:07:10,109 things 97 00:07:10,110 --> 00:07:13,319 not that mystical stuff necessarily true 98 00:07:13,860 --> 00:07:18,060 the only thing that's capital T true is that you get to decide how you're going 99 00:07:18,060 --> 00:07:24,000 to try to see it this I submit is freedom of real education of learning 100 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:28,560 how to be well-adjusted you get to consciously decide what has meaning and 101 00:07:28,560 --> 00:07:30,600 what doesn't 102 00:07:30,600 --> 00:07:36,240 that is real freedom that is being educated and understanding how to think 103 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:42,600 the alternative is unconscious the default setting the rat race the 104 00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:53,160 constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing i know that the 105 00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:56,880 stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way 106 00:07:56,879 --> 00:08:01,800 a commencement speech is supposed to sound what it is as far as I can see is 107 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:07,079 the capital T truth with a whole lot of rhetorical nicety strip the way you are 108 00:08:07,079 --> 00:08:12,120 of course free to think of it whatever you wish but please don't just dismiss 109 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:16,860 it as some finger-wagging dr. Laura sermon none of this stuff is really 110 00:08:16,860 --> 00:08:23,790 about morality religion or Dogma or big fancy questions of life after death the 111 00:08:23,790 --> 00:08:26,850 capital T truth is about life before death 112 00:08:26,850 --> 00:08:32,759 it is about the real value of a real education which has almost nothing to do 113 00:08:32,759 --> 00:08:35,909 with knowledge and everything to do with simple awareness 114 00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:43,080 awareness of what is so real and essential so hidden in plain sight all 115 00:08:43,080 --> 00:08:48,060 around us all the time that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over 116 00:08:48,059 --> 00:08:50,250 this is water 117 00:08:50,250 --> 00:08:51,659 this is water